


Error

by Nattlys



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce
Genre: ...Well I mean it IS a bug technically (thanks science), Android AU, Don't need to know Gilded Empire stuff for this, Gen, It's A Feature Not A Bug, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 12:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14915562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nattlys/pseuds/Nattlys
Summary: The Lunanoffs love expensive playthings. Kozmotis hates cleaning up after them.(Written with love and nibbles for Grandeldritch Sylphidine)





	Error

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sylphidine_Gallimaufry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry/gifts).



**_Error._ **

**_Error._ **

**_Error._ **

The pale form of a boy, not a child and yet not quite an adolescent, twitches. Suspension fluid spatters on the floor. 

**_Error._ **

Synapses fire. Another twitch.

Stars, though, is this thing expensive. Kozmotis winces as the technicians hammer away at the dozens of datapads strewn about, getting back another _**error**_ in stark, unfeeling green on the readout screen, watching the way the body on the table jerks. 

Expensive enough that the price tag could send Seraphina to school six times over, and then some. Expensive enough to move the whole family to some cushy planetoid in the more pastoral sections of the civilized universe, forget this whole headache, and retire in his early 30′s. Expensive enough, Nova-damned, that it should _fucking work_ when they need it to.

And the Lunanoffs commissioned it on a _whim._ A _plaything,_ seeing a concept made reality, looking at the whole venture like an experiment in unity between Pookan bioengineering and Constellan technology.

And they have the _fucking gall_ to design it to look like a _kid_.

**_Error._ **

He’d like to say that he expected this.

_For the good of the Empire, my ass._

The child on the table is bare, and pale; the body is segmented. Kozmotis tries hard not to think of that, and to fight off the urge to compare it to an insect pinned to a display by the instruments hovering over the prone form, but he fails and fails hard when it twitches _again_ and this time those eyes open, rolling to fix directly on him, and they’re as green as the text on the screen when it smiles around a mouthful of daggers it shouldn’t have, doesn’t need. It shouldn’t even know he’s there– it’s behind _three feet_ of reinforced shielding glass.

**_Systems online._ **

The General shivers, the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck lifting, a leftover trait from long-forgotten ancestors.

Everything about this– thing– ( _it’s a child_ , his brain screams at him, a boy no older in appearance than Seraphina, he would be just starting basic courses in magic, likely just getting his first piloting lessons, _it’s just a boy, but it’s so, so much worse_ ) is so **wrongwrongwrong** he’s sure that it’s going to _kill him_ some day, and he can just see it, those wide eyes as focused on him as they are now in this singular moment as it immediately takes in the sterile room around it and _smiles._

He still doesn’t understand how those pedantic assholes even agreed to help create this– doesn’t understand the _how_ or _why_ of the unsettling way the Pooka can meld life and manipulate biology, and doesn’t think he could ever stomach learning about it, watching this thing push itself up off the table and take its first, few, tottering steps towards the glass of the observation window as it burbles.

**_Calibrating._ **

The uncertain motions soothe the panic. It’s a _child_. An infant, really, only a few hours old, wispy bangs still sticky and plastered to it’s face from the suspension fluid. He’s a father. He’s held a creature like this in his arms– he’s soothed similar fussy noises and wiped at a similar wrinkled nose and rocked a similar frail, new life to sleep. Granted, it… or, er, _he_ , is a far sight more perceptive and alien than his gentle pup is, and it’s a body made of ceramic and synthetic and some kind of mushroom and _whatever_ wrapped around Constellan magitech, but it’s still _new_ , and probably much more likely to hurt itself– _himself_ than anything around him.

**_All processes stabilized._ **

The Pookan representatives titter among themselves. Kozmotis pushes away from his seat.

And then it _speaks_.

Sort of.

It’s not words– not words in the sense that any of the Constellans or mammals in the room could understand, but it’s a gut feeling, like some force shoving into their collective consciousnesses, prying and digging until it found what it wanted and cannibalized it for its own use, remixing thoughts and ideas to get a point across, and with a sinking feeling Kozmotis recognizes this sensation, his heart plummeting to his feet as the boy gives up all pretense of walking and throws himself, headfirst, into the observation window, a full eight feet off the ground.

It does not escape notice that the only Starling in the room, a rosy-colored Class G with a spattering of white ripples across their body, like a polished marble stone, is the only one not left staggering and shaking. Rather they, too, dart to the window, similarly weightless but on this side of the glass, glowing as brightly as any Star does when they’ve come into contact with another, causing a feedback loop as everything goes haywire.

The computer monitors explode with light and sound and data, a single, high pitched note ringing out of all of the surrounding data pads and causing the General to clap his hands over his ears and swallow down the urge to howl.

**_f Ren DS !_ **

_“_ Oh,  _fuck.”_


End file.
